


Love and Memory

by Zdenka



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Melancholy, F/M, Gen, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 21:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: A set of four drabbles written to fulfill a mini bingo challenge.1. Andreth and Aegnor spend a day in the hills of Dorthonion. / 2. Rían considers the road north. / 3. Gorlim returns to his abandoned house. / 4. Húrin remembers what Nienor has forgotten.





	Love and Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Bittiest Bingo challenge at the Drabble Soup Dreamwidth comm. [My card.](https://drabblesoup.dreamwidth.org/89156.html?thread=56900#cmt56900)

_prompt: almost human_

I. Fair But Unfinished

There were times when Andreth could almost forget that Elves were not of mortal kind. When Aegnor rambled over the hills with her all morning, when his laughter joined with hers in the sunlight. 

They walked by Tarn Aeluin as night fell. He said, “I came here once with your forefather Bëor.”

“I forget sometimes, how long you have known us. What was he like?”

He looked away. “It is a bright memory, that should be kept forever unmarred.”

“Unmarred? How could it be marred?”

He did not answer, and in the morning he was gone without bidding her farewell.

* * *

_prompt: far and away_

II. Far and Away

Many miles lie between her house in Dor-lómin and the High King’s fortress of Barad Eithel. Rían paces back and forth in her garden, as if her steps could make the distance smaller. The roses are blooming, and thyme and rosemary are fragrant under the summer sun. “He will return,” she tells the roses. Are they fighting yet? She does not know. “He promised me,” she says to a bird that alights on the garden wall.

The way is long; but if need be, she will walk every step of that road north, until she finds Huor—or his grave.

* * *

_prompt: don't know what you've got ('til it's gone)_

III. Gone

Gorlim could still remember where everything was supposed to be. When he closed his eyes, he could see it: the cheerful curtains woven on Eilinel’s loom, the shelf of books, the table he made with his own hands. The table was damp and rotting now, pale mushrooms growing from the crumbling wood. He almost wept when he saw it.

She couldn’t simply be gone. She would come back and he would find her here, laughing in wry dismay over the wreck of the table. And so he returned again and again, helpless as a leaf caught in the winter winds.

* * *

_prompt: forgotten_

IV. Snowfall

The wind drives across the mountaintop, bringing a new scattering of snow. Húrin’s hands tighten on the arms of his stone chair. Only bare rocks surround him, without shelter; an ordinary man trapped here would be dead before morning. But Morgoth’s chains bind his life to his shivering body.

In Brethil, it is snowing too, the year’s first snowfall. Nienor looks upward, laughing in delight. She has forgotten ever seeing snow before. Húrin remembers, though she does not: a young child held in her mother’s arms, stretching out small hands to catch the drifting snowflakes. He will remember for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Fair but unfinished: title from "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth".
> 
> I realize that Húrin left home before Nienor was born, but I imagine that he saw glimpses of her growing up through Morgoth-vision.


End file.
